Delusions of Grandeur
by thedreamygirl
Summary: It's been too long since he had any other home than the forest and now he finds he has nowhere else to go." Outlaws Fic, set some years after the finale.


**Title**: Delusions of Grandeur

**Rating**: PG

**Spoilers**: Specific spoilers for the season 2 finale.

**Summary**: _It's been too many years since he had any other home than the forest and now he finds he has nowhere else to go_.

**Author's Note**: Thank you very much to **Anika** for the beta! :) This was written for the **TV Haven** fanfiction challenge and is set some years after last season's finale.

* * *

1.

Will and Djaq don't return from the Holy Land. They think about it - Will more often as he swelters under cloudless skies and longs for English rain, the kind he hated so much when they were in the forest - but it's not something they discuss. The war drags on for much longer than anyone thought it would and sometimes they find it's harder for them to be here than in Nottingham when the right side and the wrong side was as clear as black and white.

They argue about it and it grows into a routine as neither can ever win. They return to their own worlds as she goes off to experiment with potions while he looks for something to whittle. He doesn't practice his craft as much as he would like; wood isn't in such abundant supply as it was in the forest - here there's just sand everywhere, stretching as far as he can see. The golden sand is always light in his hands, unlike the hard black mud of the forest, as it falls through his fingers no matter how hard he tries to grasp the grains.

Later he goes to find Djaq amongst the birds, as he always does on days such as these, and they speak in soft words soothing each other as much as the pigeons.

On the day they learn their own good news - Djaq laughs as Will rushes to tell everyone they know about the baby - they discover that Sheriff has finally been defeated. Will runs to send a message to England by way of carrier pigeon and Djaq takes his hand in hers as they watch it disappear into the sky, flying towards the friends they haven't seen in years.

2.

Little John has never felt little but by the time it is all over he feels his age more than ever.

He does not attend the celebrations with them. Robin protests once, Much many more times when he speaks of this decision, but he remains steadfast. He says it is because he wouldn't like the attention and sometimes he even believes himself. Still, in his heart he knows that if he went he would search the crowds for his family, even though his wife and son have long since moved elsewhere and made themselves a new family (that is, if they're still alive).

Afterwards they chastise him for not coming with them and speak of the glorious celebrations; food, music, dancing - Much talks mostly about the food. He laughs with them for a while before he bids his friends goodbye and slips into the darkness, never to be seen by any of them again.

It's been too many years since he had any other home than the forest and now he finds he has nowhere else to go.

3.

It takes Allan longer to come to the same conclusion.

Although he would have liked the company of two more people the celebrations are still a glorious affair; he eats more in one sitting than he has in a whole week for years. Even more than the comforts he enjoys the fame of being known throughout the country, of being asked to tell his story over and over. (Every time he tells it, his feats become more fantastical until he can't always remember which were Robin's and which were really his.)

But being a hero does not pay the way he thought they would. His "reward" for spending all these years fighting is his pardon but nothing more. It is not long before the celebrations and merriment have died down and instead of basking in their glory everyone turns to the rebuilding of the nation; a rebuilding he does not know how to partake in.

The only thing he has ever been was a theief; the only thing he was ever good at was being a theief and that is a skill which is no longer required (and he cannot return to it now and betray his friends again).

He stays until one day a carrier pigeon arrives with a message; then he heads for Scarborough.

4.

Much is happy.

It was so long ago that he can hardly remember promising to follow his master into a foreign war, a promise he did not even make for the war at home, but it is all finally over now so he smiles and celebrates in equal parts their victory and his freedom.

He spends one delicious night in Bonchurch being waited on hand and foot. He has a bath for the first time in he doesn't want to remember how long and eats as much as he can (once he has made sure everyone in the village has been fed).

The next morning he gets on his new horse and goes to find Eve.

5.

Locksley is finally restored to Robin, but he cannot stay long. King Richard has made him overseer of the rebuilding so he will soon be off to fight another battle, only this time he will not know how to judge a victory. England can be restored but not returned, but he is too tired to protest against the charge, too weak to argue when, one by one, what is left of his men slowly realise that they too will leave.

After years of spending cold, damp nights in beds of leaves and scraps of cloth, he lays his head down to rest on a bed he can't remember being his. The heat from the nearby fireplace burns, heating his skin with a warmth he cannot feel.

His heart has never returned from the Holy Land, where he buried it with his wife.


End file.
